Shift among Democrats could benefit condors

Environmental support is helping legislation

Photo courtesy of Joe Burnett / Ventana Wildlife Society
This condor chick, hatched on Easter in Monterey County's Ventana Wilderness, is the first to hatch in the area in 100 years.

Editor's note: This is the second in an occasional series.

SACRAMENTO A year ago, those in California's environmental community were sounding an alarm. Dozens of their highest-priority bills were being killed in the Assembly by a coalition of self-named moderate Democrats who were, depending on who you asked, either sensitive to the concerns of business groups or eager to pocket their special interest campaign contributions.

In any event, they were thwarting the agenda of environmentalists to such a degree that the California League of Conservation Voters declared "a crisis in June" and launched an unprecedented, $1 million campaign to help environmentally minded candidates prevail in contested Democratic primaries.

The end result was that in the fall, four open seats that had been held by termed-out moderates went to newcomers more sympathetic to environmental causes, shifting the balance of power in the Assembly's 48-member Democratic caucus.

Last week provided a hint of how that shift might affect public policy to the benefit of the California condor.

The Assembly approved a bill by Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, to ban the use of lead ammunition in areas where the endangered wild condors roam. The vote was 42-29, one more than the minimum needed for passage, and only one Democrat voted no. A year earlier, virtually the same bill had been shot down in committee defeated by "no'' votes cast by two moderate Democrats no longer in office.

"The rules have changed, and the players are different," said Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, which has fought the bill from the outset. "There are a lot of new members and they are significantly more left-leaning."

Nava insists that the success of AB 821 this year was not so much the result of a change in the Assembly's makeup, but more a combination of legislative momentum and new scientific evidence that more firmly establishes a link between the ammunition used by hunters and lead poisoning in condors that scavenge on contaminated carcasses and gut piles.

"It's an accumulation of things," Nava said.

Public support sought

As the bill heads to the Senate, Nava is ramping up his efforts to build public support, and thus more momentum. On Thursday, he announced the launch of a new Web site http://www.savethecondor.com that seeks to exploit what might be called divine intervention to bolster arguments for the bill.

The Web site includes a feature that invites users to propose names for a condor chick hatched on Easter in a cave on the side of a cliff in Monterey County's Ventana Wilderness. It was the first condor hatched in that area of California in 100 years, and its creation was the result of a modern-day resurrection story.

The chick's mother, the unimaginatively named No. 208, was a product of captive breeding at the Los Angeles Zoo. She was released into the Central California mountains in early 2000, at age 8 months. Five years later, No. 208 was discovered to be suffering from severe lead poisoning. She was captured, taken back to the zoo and rescued from certain death by a month of twice-a-day chelation therapy that cleansed her system of toxic lead.

Thus saved, No. 208 returned to the wild and went on to become a miracle mother on Easter 2007.

After describing the circumstances of the chick's creation, the Web site says, "We need to do what we can to help this young bird live in a lead-free world so that it can grow up safe and strong. Please help keep ammunition lead-free so that this young condor can survive."

The site includes an online petition that visitors can sign to support the bill.

Nava said he registered the "savethecondor" domain name about a year and a half ago in anticipation of using it to help build support for his bill. "Who could have known we would have the first baby condor in the Ventana Wilderness in 100 years?"

He is paying for the site out of campaign funds.

The issue has triggered a lobbying struggle between conservationists concerned about protecting condors and hunters who assert that copper-based ammunition is too expensive and too hard to come by. In addition, hunters and gun manufacturers argue that a ban on lead ammunition would do little to benefit efforts to save the condor from extinction.

Twenty years ago, the last free-flying California condor was plucked from the Sespe Condor Sanctuary and taken to join the 26 remaining members of his species in captivity.

After two decades of dramatic recovery through captive breeding, the species now numbers 279, with 128 again flying free.

The latest battleground in the effort to save the species from extinction is taking place in the California Legislature, where lawmakers are considering a bill, AB 821 by Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, to ban the use of lead ammunition in deer-hunting zones in the areas where free-flying condors roam.

Hunting groups and industry lobbyists from the firearms and ammunition industries have lined up against the bill, arguing that the scientific connection between lead ammunition and condor deaths has not been conclusively proven.

Environmental groups are uniting behind the bill, saying hunters can use nontoxic copper ammunition. Although it is more expensive, they say the price is justified to help preserve an endangered species.

This is the second in an occasional series of stories examining how the bill moves through the legislative process.

Gun groups are reaching out to members in an effort to generate grass-roots opposition to AB 821. The bill was prominently covered in the two most recent issues of "The Firing Line," the newsletter of the California Rifle & Pistol Association.

Columnist Herb Williams contends that continuing efforts to save the condor are ill-advised.

"Hunters are the whipping boy for an impossible attempt to restore the wild, free condors," he writes. "Even with feeding stations and lead-free gut piles, only a relatively small number of condors can survive. Is it worth it, or should this conservation money be spent on other, more practical conservation projects?"

A 2006 survey of 903 California hunters, conducted for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, found that 71 percent oppose a ban on lead ammunition.

Bill must pass Senate

Both sides must now direct their attention to the Senate where most observers believe that the 2006 election had the opposite effect as in the Assembly. In the Senate, a number of members who received high ratings from environmental groups were replaced by more moderate Democrats.

"We do believe we have a better chance in the Senate," said Paredes of Gun Owners of California. "There are more moderate and rural Democrats who will be open to listening to our concerns."

Kelly Sorenson, executive director of the Ventana Wildlife Society, said he believes that this spring's developments the hatching of one egg, with another soon ready to hatch will help build public support for the bill.

The nonprofit group manages the 27 wild condors in the coastal mountains around Big Sur and is actively seeking to engage Californians in the effort. It has promised to pick the new condor's name from among the suggestions submitted to Nava's Web site by June 30, and on its own Web site, it has posted a link to a video taken by its biologists of the chick breaking through its shell.

"We want to bring people in, get them involved so that they write their legislators and support this bill," Sorenson said. "These kinds of efforts to get more people involved and caring about the birds can only help."

Environmentally friendly

In 2006, the California League of Conservation Voters compiled a scorecard rating of how every legislator voted on 29 environmental bills. The average score of an Assembly Democrat was 87 percent. In the 2006 election, four of the lowest-rated Democrats were termed out of office, and the organization sought to support successors it believed might be more friendly to environmental causes.

- Mark DeSaulnier, Martinez.

Vote on AB 821: Yes.

Replaced: Joe Canciamilla, CLCV rating: 52 percent.

CLCV contributions: $121,400.

- Jose Solorio, Anaheim.

Vote on AB 821: Yes.

Replaced: Tom Umberg, CLCV rating: 65 percent.

CLCV contributions: $5,300.

- Wilmer Carter, Rialto.

Vote on AB 821: Yes.

Replaced: Joe Baca Jr., CLCV rating: 64 percent.

CLCV contributions: $1,500.

- Ed Hernandez, Baldwin Park.

Vote on AB 821: Yes.

Replaced: Ed Chavez, CLCV rating: 70 percent.

CLCV contributions: $4,200.

Source: California League of Conservation Voters 2006 legislative scorecard; Secretary of State